Poem: The Sage and the Warrior

The air was heavy. The thread of Samsara quivered, stretched thin between them.

The Seer stood between two truths—
one that explained, one that burned.
One that sought wisdom, one that sought war.

And the Sage, for the first time, was silent.
Not because they did not know what to say,
but because they had already said it—
so many lifetimes before.

They looked at the Warrior
—whose fire could tear the sky open,
whose hands did not tremble before the thread—
and they felt it.

The anger.
The grief.
The raw, undying rage of generations.

And when the Sage finally spoke,
they did not speak to argue.
They did not speak to soften.
They did not speak to contain.

They spoke because they had once been the Warrior, too.

The Sage’s Answer

"Do you think I do not know the shape of your anger?"
"Do you think I have not carried it, lifetimes before this one?"
"Do you think my hands have never bled from trying to pull the thread apart?"

The sky rumbled, as if it, too, remembered.

"I do not question your fire. I do not tell you to kneel. I do not ask you to accept what was never meant to be."

"But I ask you this, Warrior—what will you do when the thread is gone?"

The Warrior’s jaw clenched. Their hands, poised to cut, tightened around the unseen blade.

"You are right. Samsara is a noose."
"You are right. The cage is not real—only the belief in it."
"You are right. This world was stolen before you were born into it."

"But tell me, Warrior—what will you build when the burning is done?"

The air cracked, but the Sage did not step back.
The Warrior’s fire roared, but the Sage did not flinch.

"Rage is holy. Destruction is necessary. But fire alone does not create—only clears the way."

"So tell me, Warrior, tell me with all your fury—what will remain when the last thread is severed?"

And for the first time, the Warrior hesitated.

For the first time, the Warrior saw beyond the fire.

For it is one thing to burn the cage—
but another to teach the hands how to open once they are free.

Who is the Sage, truly?

The Sage is not against the Warrior.
The Sage has been the Warrior.
And perhaps, the Sage knows something the Warrior does not yet see.

The Sage does not deny the Warrior’s fire—they hold the deeper wisdom of knowing that fire is not the end, but the beginning.